[gala8y]

"Though it did't help that the genre's are great fits for the tracks I listened to, that does tend to happen with amateur music."

You mean are not? :) It's interesting how many preconceptions we have - I mean, selecting 'ambient' I were prepared for getting fuzzy, 'not-exactly-what-i-call-ambient' stuff. Where in different kind of service (say, internet radio) I really want to get almost exactly what I mean by 'ambient'. Just part of a deal using such a service. Amazing how all this adds to perception of the service and its usability (and success or failure).

(If I ever write a book that will be about 'contexts'.) :)

[greendestiny]

Oops, certainly did. I think you're right, but my expectations were a bit a higher with the curated nature of the site.

[earbitscom]

The site is about discovery and we find that people are more excited to stretch just beyond the genre they chose than they are to get only the songs that narrowly fit the exact description. Most peoples' complaints about Pandora are that it's too narrow and plays the same music too much. We will often put a song that has ambient (or funk, R&B) elements into the channel, even if it's not straight ambient, and the rating of the song in that channel is still strong.

[greendestiny]

I can't argue with that. If you're tracking it and it works then I've learnt something that challenges my preconceptions.